


Flowers and Chocolate

by EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12



Series: Lived, Loved, Lost [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Discussion of Small Gods, Feelings, Fluff, Hannigram - Freeform, Little Girl - Freeform, M/M, Old Age, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Widowed, flower shop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-03-24 00:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13799742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12/pseuds/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12
Summary: Emilia sees him, the man she calls Aguila, coming to buy bundles of flowers at the same time every week.She thinks he must be a small god, the god of flowers and chocolate. But she has to wonder about the sadness in his sharp features, and where he takes those flowers at 7:30 every week.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, folks! 
> 
> Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoy this little story. Not sure what inspired, but I am offering some translations below:
> 
> -Abeulo/Abeulita-- Grandfather/Grandmother  
> -Aguila-- Eagle  
> -marido-- husband  
> -anciano-- old man

The anciano that comes to their booth is tall. He is thin too, very unlike her Abuelo whose stomach is soft as cakes her mother prepares every Sunday to eat outside after morning mass. She wonders if this man is someone’s abuelo, but she has never seen him with children of any sort, only with another anciano who she hadn’t seen since before school had ended the summer before.

He dresses very nicely, in suits like Papa had worn only to Abuelita’s funeral after New Year’s that her Mama had pressed and had to let out a bit as Papa’s own stomach got a tiny bit rounder. He was still very handsome though, so handsome in fact that the woman standing at the counter at the moment is trying to get his attention, but Papa has never paid attention to anyone but Mama and she hoped that this senora (her wedding band evidenced on her finger) would realize that soon enough and leave him be.

In secret, she calls the man Aguila because of the sharp lines of his face, the strange shape of his lips that, even though his face has some wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, looks very young. If it wasn’t for his silver hair, so pale it was nearly white, she might not have known he was old at all. She wondered if her nickname might hurt his feelings, she did not mean it to be mean, but just in case she only thought it to herself. So far, he had seemed not to notice.

“Get Senor Graham’s flowers, Emilia.” Her Mama would say as he came into the square. It was the same every week: as the sun would finally start to set over the market square, the other booth’s beginning to close, Aguila would come walking from the house where he lived on the outside of town. It had used to be that he and the other anciano would walk together, with Aguila’s arm looped through his, holding him upright as they talked so softly no one could hear them and the man who was not Aguila would laugh until his glasses would nearly fall from his face.

It wasn’t until after Aguila had started coming without him that Mama had asked his name. “You come so often,” She had asked, “Is it not best to be friendly?”

And she had introduced herself and Papa, who had been arguing with another man over the price of stems and wires who had taken a moment to smile in greeting. And then Aguila’s eyes had turned to her for the first time and his face had softened just a fraction and she had smiled, even though she was eating a churro.

“And what is your name?” He had asked her in English that didn’t sound like the Americans who came through sometimes. She had hesitated, but Mama had touched her shoulder to say it was alright.

“Emilia.” She had answered, “What about yours?”

“A beautiful name,” He said, “I am Mr. Graham.”

“Are you buying flowers?”

“Indeed I am.” And so he had, every week since that first time.

She had heard Mama and Papa whispering about it sometimes: Aguila spent nearly 900 pesos each time he bought the flowers from their booth, carrying them in his arms until he was nearly hidden in the color except for his white hair that stuck over the top like a cloud. Sometimes the colors would match his suits which had all sorts of prints on them, but usually the marigolds were much brighter that Aguila’s clothes and made him look like a walking bouquet as he went out of town towards the hill that overlooked the thin river that gave them their water. They whispered about how he was their best customer, enough to merit staying open late for him, and Emilia wondered if they knew that each time he came he also slipped her something extra.

It had been a chocolate bar at first. She had even watched him buy it from Mr. Manciano at the end of the row who sold dried peppers on strings that used to hang all over Abeulo’s porch and candies that dissolved as soon as you tasted them. He had slipped the candy bar to her with a wink, never mentioning it Mama or Papa. It had been different each time. A homemade cookie, a perfectly ripened orange, a cupcake with homemade buttercream that even Abuelita would have approved of. She kept those thing secret from Mama, though she couldn’t quite say why. It felt like Aguila might be there just for her, a small god, perhaps only a god of chocolate and flowers.

She didn’t know where Aguila went after he left the market. Never, with the exception of the chocolate bar, had he ever bought anything except the flowers before he left. Miguel’s Abuelita and her friends always waved to him, called him handsome in ways that were returned with an easy smile and nod before he continued. She supposed that if he really were a god of chocolate and flowers, he was simply making deliveries. But Mama always said that he came on the other days, too, walking around the market, arms laden with fresh meats and milk and vegetables and spices in small packets that she had only ever seen the very wealthy men at the city center purchase otherwise. But she also said he always stopped by their table, to say hello, but also to make sure they would still be open when he came to buy his flowers.

She watched as he came into view now, walking slowly with his hands in his pockets. He seemed to be moving a bit slower today, idling along the path, shooing off the boys who offered to shine his shoes. Aguila was sad, she could tell, though she wasn’t sure why.

“Hola, Senor Graham.” Mama said as he came up.

“Hello,” He answered, “The usual, please.” And as Mama began to create his bundles as usual, careful not to break any stems or loose any petals in her work, he slipped her a little pouch of hand-wrapped candies.

“You are sad today, Senor Graham.” Mama said, even though her back was turned. Did small gods get sad? She hadn’t thought so, but there was an unmistakable heaviness hovering over Aguila today. “Anything we can do to help?”

“Just an anniversary, Senora.” He replied, but his tone was lighter. “Thank you.”

He handed her his usual stack of bills, already stacked by measure and waited until she had counted it to take the flowers. She had told him, several visits ago, that she trusted him plenty, but he was insistent that she count them. Aguila had many strange behaviors.

As he left, the falling sun letting him leave a long shadow behind him, Emilia turned to her Mama, putting the rest of the money away so that they could go home. “Mama,” She asked, and her mother turned, “May I go somewhere? I will come back in a minute.”

“All right, Emilia, but only a few minutes.”

She nodded and dashed off, weaving through the late evening crowd, letting the porch lights starting to glow from the tops of houses light her path as she followed Aguila. If he knew he was being followed, he gave no sign of it, and continued walking, flower papers rustling in his hands and the breeze that had started to come as they got closer to the river.

They walked past the edge of the town, and she was starting to wonder about her plan after all. What if Aguila just vanished into the air? Gods, even small ones, could do that, couldn’t they? But she had come so far that she didn’t want to turn back now. Aguila stepped up to the top of the hill, overlooking both his house and the river as the sun started to set, right at 7:30, she knew.

She stopped, watching as Aguila cleared away last week’s flowers, barely wilted, from a stone on the crest of the hill. “Hello,” He said, so clearly she nearly responded, but she realized that Aguila was not talking to her. “It is our time, myliamasis, and you can’t know how much I miss our conversations.”

She didn’t know the word that he spoke, but it was clear that Aguila was grieving, his voice thick like Abuelo’s when he talked about Abuelita, even those she had died almost two years before. He set the old flowers in a pile beside the stone, tearing the petals from the stems into a pile on the ground.

“It is our anniversary, myliamasis.” He said softly, so softly that she felt bad for listening. “Of when you came to speak that very first time.” Aguila’s long fingers reached out to touch the stone, touching the name that was engraved there. “I have your last name now. I know it is not what we agreed on when we arrived, but they know nothing of us. I can’t bear to change it now.” She watched Aguila’s long fingers trace over the words carved into the stone before they turned to the fresh flowers in his arms, spreading them over the stone and all around him on the raised mound of dirt that he was kneeling on.

When Aguila stood, it was with the same slowness as Abeulo who always said his joints were stiff, especially here by the river where the water made them damp. “I don’t know how much longer I can live without you, myliamasis.” He said, and she stiffened. Was Aguila close to dying? “You were right that we could not survive separation, and I cannot bear to leave here without you.” She could hear his voice shake as he picked up the pile of gold fettered petals off the ground, some of them falling around him back to the ground from the lump in his hands.

“Senor Graham?” She said quietly, almost whispering, still not sure if he should hear her or not. He turned sharply, a look on his tear-stained face she had never seen that flitted away just the same.

“Emilia.” He said, “you are far from home.”

“I’m sorry,” She said, stepping forward a bit. “Mama says we shouldn’t let people cry alone.”

“Your Mama is very kind.”

“Who is this?” She looked down at the gravestone. “The other anciano?”

Aguila laughed a bit at that, “Yes, Emilia. My husband, Will.”

“I didn’t know you had a marido,” She said, standing next to him now, looking down at the stone with roughly hewn letters. Aguila had money to get a headstone, she didn’t know why he hadn’t because it seemed he had carved the stone himself.

“We have been together our whole lifetime,” He said softly, tears running down his sharp face into his jacket.

“I’m sorry.” She said. “My Abuelo says he misses my Abuelita everyday he wakes up to her not there.”

“Your Abeulo understands then.” They stood in silence for a moment, and Emilia thought of the anciano that had always come with Aguila to the market. He had been very quiet, but very nice. Different from Aguila, he had never bought any flowers. She wondered, for just a moment, about love.

“You bring him flowers.”

“Yes,” He said, “Would you like to help me throw these, Emilia?” He holds out the lump of petals in her hand. “I always let them go into the breeze.”

“Okay.” She says, and takes a handful. Together they wait until the wind is whipping her hair into her eyes and they throw the petals into the air, letting them paint the air orange for a moment on their journey to the where the river flows at the bottom of the hill.

“He and I had conversations this time each week,” Aguila said, breaking the silence. “It is nice to remember.”

“Is that why you bring him flowers?”

“As a reminder.”

“I think you are the god of flowers.” She said, mostly to herself, but Aguila turns to her. “And chocolate,” She added.

“I have been called many worse things.” He said, smiling down at her. “Now, we should get your home, Emilia. Your Mama will worry.”

“I can make it back by myself.” She promised, and after only a little convincing, he had agreed to let her. She thought about Aguila on the way home, the pretty flowers and how one petal had caught in his hair and how one of his eyes, even while full of tears, had shone with a bit of a smile. She thought about Aguila’s marido, buried there on the hill. Aguila had talked about leaving, how he couldn’t leave him behind, and by the time she made it back, she must have looked so distraught that her Mama had pulled her close to her chest in a worried hug, checking her forehead for fever before they walked home.

That night, she thought instead of Aguila as the god of flowers. Of him happy with his marido, perhaps dancing when their joints weren’t stiff and swollen, surrounded by marigolds and bits of chocolate, spiced with peppers, that his marido loved him so much he laughed with happiness.

 

When the next week came, she took with her a chocolate bar for Aguila, thinking that it was time to return the favor. But, even as the sun went down and 7:30 passed by, Aguila never came. “Perhaps he was simply too busy, today.” But Mama sounded worried, even though she tried to hide it as she packs his marigolds away. Emilia takes one out.

The next morning, she leaves early and walks to the river with flower in hand, to the hill where she knows he will be. And there is Aguila, on the bed made of all the flowers he had left as she had watched him, a small smile on his face even though she knows that Aguila has passed. The small god within him had left for another place, to another hill over the river, to other flowers and chocolate. She waits until the breeze picks up, and one by one, takes the petals from the marigold and lets them catch the breeze and blow down to the river. She hopes Aguila is with his marido and leaves them together to walk to school, chocolate bar heavy in her pocket.


	2. 1 Year Prior

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, after a few conversations on Tumblr (and one review on here), here is the lead in to this story. I was overwhelmed with the response to the first part, and hope that this piece can live up to your expectations. 
> 
> Also, in other exciting news, toni-of-the-trees did beautiful art on tumblr for the first part of this, which you can find here: https://ewanmcgregorismyhomeboy12.tumblr.com/post/171623329628/toni-of-the-trees-flowers-chocolate
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy! Please R and R, let me know what you think! 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr, I'm always down to chat.

They had come into a habit, the pair of them. Sleeping under the hand-woven blankets they had purchased in Scotland in the months they spent their, heavy enough that it kept the arthritis in their joints from swelling and kept off the bite of cold that came with their slow-running circulation. In most morning Hannibal could reach over and feel the deep wrinkles on the hand that was extended towards him. There had been times, some years ago, that they would wake entangled in sheets, with no separation between them but a thin sheen of sweat that stayed on their skin, but those days were passed and intimacy had changed between them. And closeness, though longed for, had morphed to something softer. And now resonated in this gentle touch of fingers.

This morning touch was an important part of his day, reassuring him that the months of poor health and lingering bronchial infection were truly past. Normally, they would curl a bit at his touch, until their palms were pressed together and he could place a kiss on Will’s withered cheek, lips pressing on what was now a near-ancient scar and the gentle scratch of a beard he helped to groom when the same hand he held could no longer curl well around the clippers.

And sometimes, he would get an unhappy grumble from the body next to his own. A wish for more sleep, regardless of the fact that it was usually well past daylight’s beginnings. And sometimes the body next to him was already awake and his kiss would be returned with a hint of lingering passion. Enough to merit a morning of lying together, bare skin pressed together; sometimes more, what their bodies would allow for which, even he admitted, had been very little the last few years.

It was those days with lazy showers and difficulty getting out of bed that took them to the pueblo market. It teemed with life, thrived with a vibrancy that had been rare to see, even on their now decades of traveling to all odd corners of the globe. Meat was bagged and vegetables bartered in voices never louder than a shout, peppers dropped into brown paper and handmade candies were wrapped and twisted with perfect precision as they joined spices and fish and blots of fabric to be carried to houses miles away. Hannibal loved the market, the lifeblood of this pueblo for certain. When he went on his own, his days were filled with conversations about snippets of lives beyond his own. Discussions of the school, soccer games, the upcoming music festival, new spice shipments, and finally, the flower cart in the center of the market that sold the most beautiful marigolds he had seen, including the ones that adorned the outside of palaces and churchyards dotted across continents.

He could see the care in the fullness of the petals, the gentleness in the diagonally sliced stems. He would stop, during the day when the man and woman were bustling with the lunch day crowds and buy a bouquet of another type for their table at home. The marigolds would have been too bright in their home, where the darkness of their lives together lingered in the small space. But the dark blues and purples and greens that he found to fit there were just as beautiful. He did not speak, other than to place his order, and he thought the Senora might be grateful since his visits usually coincided with the arrival of a particularly difficult man who she thought might actually be the woman’s mother.

 His return home from those solitary days would be to the smell of fresh-pressed coffee and, on occasion, lightly fluffed cakes from the oven for an afternoon spent together. Reading, perhaps, or walking by the river. His bag from the market on those days was always heavy with the bounty of a dozen stops.

And there were days they would go together. Days very different, but far more precious to him. When he would intertwine their arms together so that he could provide the support needed for Will to walk together. It took much longer to arrive at the market, and by the time they did, the hustle had died down from the early and lunchtime crowds. They would walk slowly through the booths, Will clinging to him in almost fear. There had been many years that walking through a place like this would have been suicide at its simplest, and the fear that Hannibal might be lost had never left the man clinging to him as they walked.

But their days of being able to be recognized were long past, faded with aging features, and Hannibal had long relaxed about their public appearances. And besides, even if there was a chance that someone might see them, their would be little traction to the rumor that they were the infamous pair. A pair of ancianos, living together on the edge of a quiet village that had never known violence. Not since their arrival either, those days were long-faded and this final move had been almost as much for a change of scenery as it had been for the principle of their safety.

Even if they were still young and virile and the dangerous men Jack Crawford had painted them as before he had died some years before, storied career written behind him in blood and the disgrace of never quite being able to finish his life’s work, he would not miss the opportunity to see Will cast in the sunset of this place, rich red light illuminating his still bright eyes and catching the white strands of his iron grey curls as he looked ahead through his glasses. And so he held him close, consoled him with small anecdotes from his own trips to market until he shook with gentle laughter and was calm enough to go with him to the pescadero to choose the best of the catch for their dinner that evening.

And he craved that laughter, those small, involuntary motions of his body as he smiled with his cracked tooth and still-handsome lips, almost as much as he craved their conversations. They still dipped into the nature of things; their own natures and the reality they had constructed. Nights spent together in their shared rooms of their memory palace from their self-officiated wedding in Palermo to Will holding him as they stood outside the wrought iron gate in front of his first home, still unable to pass through the bars, to when he held Will outside of a policeman’s grave deep in the bayous of Louisiana on what had been their last night ever spent on American soil. There were rooms where the doors and windows were flung open to let in light and let words flow through them until they were crowded with bits of a thousand conversations clinging to the bricks. And there were rooms that remained shadowy and dark, where memories of what had once been their family stayed cold and untouched. He wanted to ask, wanted to see what Will might do, but it had not been worth the loss he knew would follow, the loss of what Will perceived as a mutual understanding that some doors should remain closed as they were. And, perhaps for the only time in his life, he hadn’t been able to break that trust, based on a promise that he had never even agreed to.

And those nights would always end with conversations, soft touches on a shared couch or in the bed that grew more and more inviting as the clock hands drew closer to late evening hours. Even to Hannibal, who had rarely slept more than six hours most days, found the downy softness irresistible and sleep came quickly in the shared warmth. And those nights, spent in warmth and close proximity, led to mornings that would start with a gentle touch.

Which is why this morning had come so unusually. When he had extended his hand, Will’s had been in the same place it always was, but the skin was cold. It had jarred him. “Will.” He said, not groggy but not full to waking. “Will.”

But the response had only been shallow breathing, wheezing breaths from tired lungs that had fought off one to many bouts of pneumonia. He could feel the heaviness settling over him, over them both. The damage that Will had sustained at his hand and at his side finally too much for his body to handle.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t ever going to wake up.” Will wheezed. “I’ve been waiting for almost thirty minutes,” And Hannibal looked down at his eyes as he tried to laugh, seeing them glint a little more even as his skin was turning ashen.

“Let me help you up, myliamasis.” Hannibal shifted.

“Don’t go.” Will said, so quietly that Hannibal had to freeze, hearing each rattling breath like it was piercing through his skin. “I didn’t wait for you so you could leave me now.”

“I could never leave you, myliamasis.” He said, feeling his own voice start to break. He knew. They both knew what the death rattle in Will’s lungs meant. He had minutes. Maybe less. And still, his brain was fighting it. Every ounce of him was fighting it. “Let me help you stand, it may ease your breathing--”

“Hannibal.” Will said, and wrapped his hand around Hannibal’s worried wrist, holding him in place. “Just…hold me for a moment…Be still for once.” And he smiled again, amusing himself. Hannibal moved, shifting to gather Will in his arms as best he could, leaning him back against his chest, keeping their hands laced together.

After moments, punctuated by ever-slowing breathing, he coughed hard and gained his voice again. “Are you going to eat my brain?” He asked, his voice holding no contempt, only curiosity. It was one of the doors that remained closed, the time between Will’s first and only betrayal and Hannibal’s resignation to Jack Crawford out of love for a man who did not know himself well enough to realize it.

“No.”

“Why not?” Will asked, and laughed, though the sound was diminished. “There are finally no consequences.”

“No consquences?” This time, Hannibal was forced to laugh. “I want to keep you whole, myliamasis, you are most beautiful this way.” Hannibal said, and realized for the first time that tears were flowing freely down his cheeks, catching in Will’s hair and dampening the ends so he pressed his forehead to his temple, making sure Will did not know.

“But that isn’t possible.” Will protested, and turned his head to face Hannibal, the angle strange, but enough to let him see his eyes, laying his head on Hannibal’s still-broad shoulders.

“Pardon?”

And Will disconnected their hands raised his fingers to Hannibal’s chest, pressing them against his sleep shirt with a smile. “You took my heart long ago, Hannibal.”

And Hannibal said nothing as Will’s eyes closed, breaths growing shallower and shallower. He moved only when the noise was barely loud enough for him to hear, and pressed a kiss to Will’s forehead, closing his eyes and pressing his own head there until the sound finally stopped and the body pressed do fully against his own grew so cold it was nearly ice in his hands. And still, he didn’t move, not until the sun had started to fall and the tears from his eyes had stopped flowing. And he pressed a single kiss to the face that had had stood by his side for so long and climbed from the bed, going to find Will’s favorite jacket to ward off the chill and a shovel to start his task.

 

The market was quiet in the evenings, enough traffic to keep it open, but not enough that it seemed almost a different place from his visits during the day. The loud booths selling rice bowls and street corn were closed and with them, the long lines were gone form the place. The older women who whistled at him were out in the open where he could stop and talk if he wanted. Instead, he smiled at them as he walked. But, most importantly, there, in the center of the market, was the booth with the beautiful marigolds.

He wasn’t sure what had taken him there the first time, where his fingers were still raw from the hours spent carving Will’s true name into the rock that now rested above him on the hill overlooking Will’s favorite spot on the river. It was the same night he and Will had always had their conversations. A tradition he had kept for himself, even in those three years of painful separation, when he lived safely only inside his own mind. And he had found his feet, instead of going straight to the hill, going to the market.

And so weeks had passed, and it was clear he was expected. When he came, his flowers were ready in seconds, wrapped up in bundles and prepared. He bought only the marigolds now. They had been too bright for their life together, for the space they had shared. But they were not too bright for Will, who had been all of the light in his life. Who deserved their beauty. Who deserved the brilliance, the colors that the flowers gave him, spread over his grave in great swaths, the petals painting Hannibal’s view all the way to the river where he could hear it running over the smooth stones, barely rippling.

And finally, the senora who made his flowers had asked his name. “You come so often,” She said, her smile tired from a day spent in the sun. “Is it not best to be friendly?” And she and her husband, a friendly man who he knew inspired the talk of many of the same older women who made sure to wave at him, had been introduced.

And then he had seen the little girl, eating a dessert from a small paper wrapper, looking up at him with rich brown eyes, her long black hair pulled back off of her forehead that beaded with sweat from a day of helping. “And what is your name?” He has asked her, not able to help smiling. He remembered Will’s smile when he discovered that Hannibal truly did have a soft spot for children. He couldn’t take them for therapy, too much damage was clear and they were as liable to lose parents as he was to loose his license for recklessness. Such a strange thing to think about now.

“Emilia.” She had said. “What’s yours?”

“That's a beautiful name. I'm Mr. Graham.” He had answered. It was not a lie.

And every week since, when her mother had gathered his flowers, he had brought her something from home. It lent him a purpose, to bring her those small treats, to see someone smile for happiness at seeing him again, someone who would never know anything other than this façade of him. It was not a fate he knew he desired, but perhaps a fitting one. The only person to ever truly see him was interred below his feet, and this girl, this little girl who ate his gifts only in secret when her mother had turned away and she could taste the tip of the buttercream he had made or the rich tips of chocolate bars he had set in the tiny freezer they had had been afforded, would be perhaps the last one left to tell his story. And what a story it might be.


End file.
